Memos from Poirot
by Boogum
Summary: A collection of Azusa/Rei one-shots. Genres will vary.
1. A Taste

This was written for _Poirot Café's_ Super Short Contest #18: Peach.

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 **Soundtrack:** Candle By the Window - Karliene

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 **A Taste**

She tastes like the peach he peeled for her, sweet and addicting. He knows from the moment their lips touch that he's made a mistake.

Rei pulls back. "I'm sorry," he mutters.

"Don't."

Her voice makes him pause. Gentle. Pleading. She curls her fingers into his shirt, tugging him closer.

"Please, don't."

She sounds so vulnerable. So tempting. He knows what she is asking. He knows how much he wants to give in to her. His hands are still on her shoulders, refusing to let go. He wants to pull her in; he wants to push her away.

He wants everything and knows he deserves nothing.

"Azusa-san," he says, and then breaks off. He swallows, tries again. "I'm not—this isn't—"

"Don't," she repeats, and her grip tightens on his shirt. "Don't ruin it."

 _Please._

Her unspoken word lingers between them. His pulse quickens. They are very close and her eyes are very blue; it's a stupid thought to have, but it's all he can think before she leans up on her tiptoes and kisses him. The taste is somehow bittersweet this time. Even still, he doesn't push her away.

He _can't_.

This woman has ruined him. Her smiles, her laughter, her own brand of cheekiness and sweetness. She's more dangerous than any codenamed criminal he's faced; more dangerous than the weapons that have cut and buried into his skin. She got him good. So good she hit without warning: a one-shot kill that slipped under all of his defences, under all of his lies, striking so deep it's like she's touched his soul.

He _aches_ for her.

Her warmth. Her goodness. Her very being.

Rei threads his fingers through her hair. Their lips meet and part in an exchange of slanting caresses and shared breaths. It's a dizzying rush of sensations and emotions. He feels like he's losing himself in her, or maybe this is just what it feels like to _be_ himself. Not Amuro, not Bourbon, not even Zero. He's a man, and she's a woman, and right now all he wants is to be closer.

She tastes like peaches and her touch stirs his heart and his blood.

"Azusa," he breathes.

Her name falls so easily off his tongue. No honorific. Just soft and intimate. Her hands get bolder in response, her kisses more demanding. He knows they should stop, but everything about her calls him onwards. She's a siren that drowns his reason, an endless freefall that he can't escape.

Doesn't even want to escape.

He loves this woman so damn much. It hurts. It scares him. It might even destroy him. Hell, the man named Furuya Rei doesn't even exist for her. All she knows are his lies. It's just one of many reasons for why he should not be kissing her; only a fool would think that this could end well. Still, he can't bring himself to push her away. Instead, he presses her back into the countertop and trails kisses down her jaw. She moans a name—his fake one, of course—and that stings too.

 _Rei!_ he wants to yell. _My name is Rei!_

But he can't. He can never say those words to her. Not unless he wants to put her in danger. His life belongs to Japan, and she was never meant to get this close.

 _He_ was never meant to get this close.

Rei cradles her face and kisses her on the lips. She tastes like peaches. It's still bittersweet.

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I keep telling myself that one day I'll manage to write something humorous for this pairing. Looks like today was not that day. Here's to hoping this collection will change that, haha.


	2. Runaway

This was written for Poirot Café's Super Short Contest #20: Carnival. I wasn't planning to write anything for this one, but then this idea hit me, so here I am.

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 **Soundtrack:** Dies Irae - Eurielle

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 **Runaway**

The circus was a beacon that lit up the night, flashing in bursts of neon colours: pink, green, blue, yellow—Rei couldn't keep track. It was an attack on his senses: the brightness, the loud music, the even louder voices, all the scents of food and sweat and cigarette smoke.

 _Too much,_ a voice whispered in his mind.

His chest tightened and his breathing quickened. It was difficult to inhale and exhale. He'd grown so used to the sterile rooms of the facility: to the fluorescent lights that glowed overhead—always white—and the hushed voices of his minders. There had been no laughter. No joyful shouts. His days had been filled with the scribbles of pens on clipboards and the soft click-clack of shoes on a linoleum floor; of instructions that needed to be followed and the quiet hum of machines. Sometimes he'd shot guns, sometimes he'd practiced hand-to-hand combat, but everything about those lessons, including the people with whom he had interacted, had been anticipated and contained.

There was nothing contained about the circus.

Rei stood in the midst of smiles and laughter and wondered if this was what freedom was supposed to feel like. Crushing. Suffocating. The crowd pushed at him from all sides, like a current trying to suck him into its grasp. He felt small and out of place. He felt like how he had when he'd still attempted to play with the other kids—before Miyano Elena had disappeared and his minders had put him under increased supervision. A drowning sense of helplessness. A dawning realisation that he was simply too different.

That maybe he would always be too different.

The tightness in his chest got worse. It hurt to breathe. Too many lights. Too many people. Too many scents and sounds. Rei wanted it to stop. He gasped for air and shoved his way through the crowd, fighting against the rising panic: against the starry splotches that blurred his vision and the sickening flutters of his heart. Somehow, he found himself hiding in a little nook behind one of the tents. It was much quieter here. Less crowded and not as bright. Too bad someone was already occupying the space.

"Who are you?"

Rei blinked and stared at the girl huddled next to him. She was a lot younger than him: maybe five or six years old, judging from her size. Her brown hair had been pulled into pigtails and she was wearing a blue dress that matched her eyes. It also looked as if she had been crying: her cheeks were damp and her eyes puffy. Still, the sight of him seemed to have snapped her out of being upset. She sniffed and once again repeated her question.

"Rei," he answered in a thick voice. "My name is Rei."

She tilted her head to the side. "Just Rei?"

He nodded. He didn't have a surname. Not really. He wasn't even sure if Rei was his real name. It wasn't like he had any memories of his life before the Organisation.

"I'm Enomoto Azusa," the girl informed. She leaned forward and brushed her fingers against his fringe. "Niichan has really pretty hair. You look like an angel."

Rei felt his cheeks warm. He'd been called all sorts of offensive names because of his appearance, but no one had ever said he looked like an angel. The fact the girl had touched him was also a shock. Most of the kids he had come across had steered well away from him. They'd said he was cursed and accused him of being a demon's child. Maybe that was why he wanted to make sure this girl was okay now. It was what normal boys did, right?

"You were crying," he observed. "Did something happen?"

Azusa hugged her knees to her chest. "I got separated from my brother. A scary man kept trying to make me follow him, so I ran and hid here." She sniffed again. "I was really scared until Niichan came." Her brow furrowed, as if she had just realised how odd it was that Rei had ended up huddled in the nook with her. "But why did Niichan come here? Was Niichan also trying to hide?"

"Something like that," Rei admitted.

He'd known the Organisation would find him if he escaped in the conventional way. That was why he'd thought to join the circus. It was what runaway orphans did, wasn't it? So he'd stolen money, snuck out of the facility, and then caught the first train out of that hellhole. Except it seemed that hellhole was the only place where he could breathe and feel "normal". Being at the circus was too overwhelming. Too foreign.

Put simply, he didn't belong here. Though he supposed this little nook was okay.

Azusa clasped his hands with her small, warm ones. "Let's help each other! It'll be less scary if we go back out there together."

Before Rei could respond, the girl tugged on his hands and dragged him out of the nook with her. He knew that he could have easily freed himself: she was a lot smaller and weaker. Still, Rei couldn't bring himself to break the contact. Maybe it was because she was the first person outside of the facility who didn't seem to mind his presence; because she didn't think he looked weird for having blond hair and dark skin, or that she hadn't automatically assumed he would hurt her.

Or maybe it was just because, when she grinned at him as she did now, it made the corners of his mouth twitch upwards.

"See," Azusa said, still grinning up at him as they merged with the crowd. "It's not so bad now, right?"

"Yeah." He intertwined his fingers with hers. "It's not so bad."

The lights were still too bright, the sounds too loud, the scents and people too many, but the little hand that held his own acted as an anchor to keep him grounded. Even when he was later found by the Organisation and forced to return to the facility, he could still remember how it had felt: that tiny twitch of the mouth; how his chest had filled with an inexplicable warmth.

Rei had never smiled before. Not even with Elena. He thought that this was what it must be like though.


End file.
